New VO and rewards

2 weeks after the big gameplay update that introduced new movement and loadouts to the game, Id Software has released another new update. I’m pretty sure this one will be less controversial as the last one, but still I foresee some uproar because the voice announcements we all come to love have been replaced. Besides this fairly minor change (let’s be honest), they have introduced Playlists and the end-map vote has now replaced a choice of maps with a choice of gametypes.

Why was the voice changed you ask? The old VO was recorded by Id employee Xian, but he unfortunately left the company somewhere in March so he wasn’t available to do any more voices. Who is this new voice then? Christopher Sabat, who some will know as the voice of Piccolo from Dragonball Z. New awards mean new VO’s, and for consistencys sake, it was decided to change them all in 1 fell swoop. I feel some power was lost when compared to the old VO’s, but it’s a necessary evil if you want everything to sound similar instead of being a mix of old and really old. Perhaps it even opens the door to VO packs with the imminent Steam release?

Now, Playlists. Playlists allow you to choose a set of gametypes to get you into action quickly. Most varying playlists are Team Combat (which includes TDM, Dom and FT) and Variety Pack (which includes A&D, HAR, iFFA, 1FCTF, RR and Quad Hog FFA). Other playlists are simply CA, FFA, Duel and CTF. They actually represent the type of server that is running (pure gamemode and mixed gamemodes). This detail comes down to the last part of the update and that is the end-game mapvote. In the playlists that have multiple gamemodes players will be able to vote for their favorite gamemode to be played next, the playlists that have only 1 gamemode will still show a map vote.

The rest of the update includes a whole bunch of fixes for both the game itself and the maps. Full log below.

Today’s update brings us a new announcer voice, several new in-game reward medals, new Play Now playlists including public standard servers for all game types, and a round of polish to address outstanding issues.

New Announcer Voice, along with New In-Game Reward Medals!

Combokill, damage with one weapon, and follow up with a rail kill.

Rampage, gib three opponents, each within 3s of eachother.

MidAir, kill an airborne enemy with a projectile.

Revenge, kill a player who has killed you 3 or more times since you last killed them.

First Frag, awarded to the player who earns the first frag of the match in FFA or Duel.

New Playlists

Players may now select Playlists from the Play Now menu that host multiple game modes. When playing on these servers, during the end-game map vote players will be able to vote to transition to a new game mode. All playlists are available for all players to join. Current playlist include:

Hearth
– Fixed floating ammo packs
– Added a drop down at GL
– Changed the 50hp at GL to a MH, and placed it at the bottom of the drop down.
– Added shards in drop down hallway.
– Removed MG
– Moved HMG to center of the map, moved PG to a side wing.
– Disabled LG and RG from loadouts.

Hell’s Gate – QA fixes

Retribution – Fixed floating ammo.

Siberia
– Fixed missing medkits
– A few fixes, model origins were in solids. Converted the geo in question to detail brushes.
– Fixed a shader issue found on Siberia, no lightmap stage.